Medicare card scam targeting local seniors

CARLETON — A Carleton cou­ple said senior citizens should be cautious about a scam involving phone callers claiming they are enrolling new Medicare recipi­ents and need personal informa­tion from recipients to send out their medical cards.

Gene Merritt of Carleton said he and his wife were contact­ed this week by someone who claimed to be notifying residents that they would be getting new Medicare cards in the mail soon.

The man calling spoke in bro­ken English and asked his wife for the numbers on their joint checking account to add to the cards that are being sent.

“That was pretty obvious to me that this was not legitimate and was a scam,” Mr. Merritt said. “In a weak moment, someone might give out that information. I just want to make people aware of this and to watch out if they call.”

Personal information such as checking accounts, savings ac­counts and credit card state­ments should never be given out over the phone, the Better Busi­ness Bureau said.

To protect themselves from un­known callers, people should just hang up and should not confirm any information over the phone.

For more information or to file a complaint, residents can go to the bureau’s Web site at www.bbb.org.

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